Godus

Molyneux Returns To The Genre He Helped Create

Before
Peter Molyneux took the stage at PAX Prime to deliver his keynote, we
met with him to tour his latest creation. Godus clearly takes cues from Populous, the
Bullfrog game that pioneered the god genre back in 1989, but also
shares similarities to strategy titles like Civilization.

Upon
starting the game, players are given dominion over a couple and a
large swathe of land. To increase your population, you must click and
drag layers of the land to make it more hospitable. As you do so your
faithful followers will construct new abodes. You can sculpt the
land, creating large mountains, deep valleys, wide or narrow rivers,
and remove trees as you see fit. Altering the land can have a
larger affect on the world as well. If you alter the shores of a
region, it can change the tidal pattern, which could affect the winds
and weather.

Once
your fledgling population reaches 750 people, your civilization comes
out of the primitive age and into the bronze age. Much like Firaxis'
Civilization, Godus progresses follows the development of human
culture, from the bronze and iron ages right up to the information
and space ages. Each age requires you to meet a different objective
to proceed. For instance, the bronze age isn't focused on population
growth like the primitive age; during that era your believers must
develop better tools.

When
you advance an age, you receive a card that grants new god
powers. Some cards simply give you new tools for sculpting the land
and controlling your population. Others bestow great powers like the
ability to create earthquakes, meteor showers, or to use the Finger
of God to stomp out individual citizens. You can also find these
power-granting cards hidden in the world or earn them in multiplayer
battles.

For
the multiplayer component, Molyneux set out to create a simplistic
real-time strategy system that harkens back to the early days of the
genre. These matches follow the traditional plan-build-attack
approach. Before each battle you can determine how many citizens you
want to start with. Bringing a considerably larger force makes it
easier to win the game, but the rewards will be commensurately
lesser.

The
demonstration battle Molyneux fights has a unique type of follower at
stake. These are valuable because they bring new skills to your
population, and as they cross-breed your citizens will become much
more skilled. This particular follower looked to be skilled at
procuring resources.

Multiplayer
battles occur in instanced maps rather than your home world. The
primary resource you must collect and spend in these skirmishes is
belief. You earn belief by growing your population, which can then be
spent to terraform the land more quickly, direct your soldiers around
the battlefield, and enact your godly powers of destruction.

Head-to-head
battles aren't the only multiplayer matches available; Molyneux also
mentioned a population race mode, a gem capture mode, and a
particularly destructive mode called Armageddon.

Upon
returning to your home world after a multiplayer match, you can put
your newfound followers or resources to work. Molyneux says the world
is roughly the size of Jupiter, and as you expand your border you
will inevitably bump up against another person's civilization. At
that point, you can determine whether you want to cooperate to make
the world a better place or have an antagonistic relationship.

The
big wild card in Godus, of course, is the God of All Gods. Earlier
this year Molyneux revealed that the winner of the Curiousity
experiment, a Scottish teenager named Bryan Henderson, would be
granted dominion over the totality of Godus. So how does this play
out?

Basically,
Henderson has three tools at his disposal. He can make trivial
decisions, like permanently changing the weather of the world. He can
rule on moral questions raised by other Godus gods. The examples
Molyneux gave were ruling whether or not workers should be given time
off during the day or introducing contraception for population
control. The third way he can affect the world is by altering the
values of particular tasks. For instance, he could change how much
belief it costs you to chop down trees.

Henderson will have
six months of uncontested rule, but as that comes to a close another
god can challenge him to a televised match. If this challenger wins,
he or she will then be given a three-month reign to affect change on
the world using those same tools.

Players
can get their hands on Godus starting September 13, when the Steam
early access version becomes available. The game is eventually coming to Android, iOS, and Mac as well.

What a cool game! I like Molyneaux, he's ambitious and creative-both of which make him respected even if disliked. It's a great combination to have in our industry (ambition and creativity not respect and disdain:) We need him to keep experimenting. Also come back to consoles Pete you nutty Brit. Fine I'll buy an android console but I AM not happy. Yes I am.

I hope the graphics are a little less cartoony than this. You can make the argument "Graphics don't make a game!", but when the graphics and art style limit my enjoyment of the game that will likely be awesome otherwise I would think I have a right to hope this. I never could get into Morrowind because of this, the look of it just ruined my immersion, and the godawful fighiting animations.

Kind of a relief that the "God of All Gods" isn't a permanent position,it would be rather frustrating to play the game if the GoAG decided to be a jerk and jack up how much belief it costs to do stuff to ridiculous levels.

I'm currently involved with the Prison Architect and Contraption Maker early access, so while Godus is high on my list of games I want to play I could not possibly give 22 Cans constructive feedback and bug reporting as I'm busy with other games a the moment.

I'm looking forward to the finished product of Godus and wish 22 Cans the best with the project an it's early access.